I woke up this morning to my usual routine involving cleaning myself up for the day ahead and looking in the mirror at how damn good I look. It would be just like any morning, but in a little under 8 hours, I along with thousands more, will be loading up the Guild Wars 2 client for the Beta Weekend Event. Now, you may ask yourself, “It’s just a beta, what’s so special about it?” The answer depends on who you ask, but since you obviously are asking me, allow me to tell you.

I have played the game before at PAX and PAX East. I have kept up on blog posts from ArenaNet, even blogging about some of their decisions and how it will affect the MMO market. I have been waiting for this game since it was announced in 2007 and never before how I paid so much attention to any game. I have talked about my love for ArenaNet, and I have shared my angry passion about Guild Wars 2, but at the end of the day I will always come back to what ArenaNet has created with open arms.

So, what makes this special? I mean, I have played the game at conventions, so it’s not like I’ll be seeing anything new, right? Well, no. You see, at PAX and PAX East, it was always playing standing and in a huge crowd. Not to mention the 45 minute timer didn’t help. What would I do in that short time period? I could never figure it out so I always rushed out without paying much attention. Needless to say, it was fun in the moment, but looking back it was not THAT enjoyable. Now I have a chance to play at a pace I can choose and do what I want to without worrying about how silly I look trying to jump over invisible walls or killing random rabbits in a field. Now I can take a breath and actually play the game I have been so eagerly awaiting for 5 years.

But rather than spam my excitement for this 60 hours of fun (and no doubt frustration over server queues and loads) over twitter or g+, I just wait calmly and with a slight grin as I post about my time waiting for this. All while looking back over the last 7 years and the almost 12,000 hours I have given ArenaNet and Guild Wars. As I said before, I can actually take a breath this time to play, but also this is a chance to bring back my old guild members, some of who I haven’t talked with in forever, and reminisce over the good old day while enjoying the new ones ahead. 3PM will come soon enough, followed by a number of players unable to login or server loads crashing the game (maybe), but I’ve waited for 5 years. I can wait a bit longer and be content in following everything that has lead to this. I can sit back and wait for it to come to me rather than go to it and when it gets here, well, I’ll be sure to send you all a post card.

Stay lazy, my Tyrian friends.